The Creepy True Story Behind AMC’S Horror Series 'The Terror'

AMC's horror series The Terror seems to be following in American Horror Story's footsteps as one of those ever-popular shows that are based on true stories. The Terror gives an account of a real 1845 expedition, led by John Franklin, to locate the long sought after Northwest Passage that's believed to link the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Before long, the two primary ships in this narrative, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror, became frozen in the ice and the crews were forced to abandon their ships and set out on foot. They're never seen alive again.

Although the story behind the show certainly makes for an exciting and harrowing adventure in its own right, the producers chose to add in a few supernatural elements to really spice things up. For instance, the crews in the show are pursued by a massive monster that looks like a polar bear with an elongated neck. And it's this intoxicating blend of historical fact and supernatural fiction that promises to make The Terror the stuff of nightmares.

Did the crews actually resort to cannibalism? Did they get pursued by a polar bear from hell? Could their boats really move at an eye-watering 4.6 miles per hour? Here's how it all really went down.

In the event that a group of individuals actually survives a devastating tragedy and resorts to cannibalism, the decision to actually start eating other humans typically comes about in stages. People don't just start gnawing on their dead friends from the feet up.

Cannibalism typically begins with the cutting off of big, important muscle groups directly off the bones and then working away at the corpse until most of the meat has been eaten. But if the situation happens to be particularly desperate, survivors will often resort to "end-stage" cannibalism, which involves the cracking of bones in order to suck out the marrow inside. And this is exactly what happened to the crews of the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror.

For decades, stories circulated among communities of Inuit people living in the area around King William Island telling of the mountains of human bones that appeared to have been cracked in half and left out in the snow. And it's those very same bones that were rediscovered in the 1980s and used by scientists to learn that things had indeed gotten particularly desperate for the stranded crew members.

The Ships Had Been Trapped In Ice For Years Before The Crews Finally Died

During their attempt at discovering the Northwest Passage, the crews of the Erebus and the Terror eventually found that their ships had become frozen in the ice. Initially, this didn't appear to be a huge problem because they'd brought along tons and tons of food, including over 9,000 pounds of chocolate, 200 gallons of wine, and 36,487 pounds of biscuits, among other things. And despite the fact that the began the expedition fully anticipating that it would take a long time, their provisions eventually began to dwindle.

Unfortunately, the ice that had stalled their progress didn't thaw by the next winter, nor the winter after that. And once one of the captains died - loathe to spend a third winter aboard those ships - the crews set off on their own across the ice in search of rescue.

The Ships Were Outfitted With Fancy Steam Engines That Likely Poisoned The Crews' Drinking Water

Although the ships weren't originally designed for rigorous exploring, the Terror and Erebus were outfitted with fancy, state-of-the-art locomotive engines for their trek. The engines allowed the boats to move more swiftly in the water with the goal of speeding up the voyage. Unfortunately, it's since been discovered that those very engines may have contributed to an outbreak of lead poisoning among the crews.

The ships were outfitted with water filtration systems that worked in conjunction with their new engines, in theory allowing the ships to filter their own water so that they could stay out at sea for longer. But it is now believed that there may have been an unknown issue with the system, as the filtration engines progressively became clogged with lead, which could have led to severe lead poisoning among the crew members.

During the 150 years that it took to rediscover the Erebus and the Terror, European and American expeditioners had continually heard stories about "ghost ships" trapped out on the ice. Even in modern times, members of local Inuit communities have shared their stories about strange experiences and sightings near where the ships disappeared.

A local Inuit man named Sammy Kogvik reported that he was once snowmobiling with a friend in the area when he spotted what appeared to be a mast sticking out of the ice. He took a few pictures with the strange object, but when he got back home he found that the camera had disappeared from his pocket. He took this as a bad omen and decided to keep the sighting a secret.

Ultimately, stories like this are exactly what helped lead researchers to the ships.